Page 87 of A Girl and HER Prince
“Clysta is Achilles’s mother,” he said, dreading what this meant. “Why?”
Livvy’s face paled. “Her picture was inside the ledger!” she shouted. Livvy set the bag down and upended the contents onto the grass until she scraped out a photograph at the bottom. “Her name’s on the back. See? Clysta!” She pushed it into his hands.
And sure enough, there was Achilles’s mother, just as he’d remembered, only she was older than before and she stood next to his uncle like they were a couple. She hadn’t died at that compound when they were children. His fingers tightened on the photograph.
“Read the back,” she said.
“… and so I wish you well, Atreus, my love. Happy travels, Clysta.”
Achilles shouted down on the beach below them. “That’s their flare. It has to be! They’re here!”
“No!” The words fell from Venice’s lips in a strangled sound of regret. “No, no!” His mind went to Achilles’s absence after school, his sudden resentment against Venice’s stern father. Venice wasn’t sure what had happened then, or why Achilles’s mother was somehow paired up with his uncle, but this had to mean that she’d joined their rebellion against the aristocracy. She must’ve reached out to her son to come home. Who knew what other lies they’d told him?
That meant Venice’s uncle was the duke’s new… stepfather, was it? Venice groaned. Atreus Mnon must’ve used every resource he had to use Achilles as his pawn.
The fury of betrayal washed over Venice, leaving him shaking with rage. It didn’t matter what rubbish his uncle and his treacherous new wife had told Achilles about them—his friendnevershould’ve believed it.
They’d grown up together! And still, Achilles had tried to kill him. Venice had done nothing to him, but his sister? She was a different story. “If he hurts Bris…” he whispered.
“He wouldn’t,” Livvy said.
“I thought he loved me like a brother,” he said. “We were best friends.” He held his breath before he let it out in a whoosh of fear. “Achilles has even less love for my sister.”
And he was coming after them again. The duke had seen the direction of the flare. And Deedee? She was rushing along for “the rescue” too. Would she get hurt or was she also in on this? Those two had gotten close enough for her to give him that ring—the rubies on it now decorated Venice’s stomach with his family crest.
Venice couldn’t allow Deedee and Achilles to discover them, not until they radioed Turner and got more help.
“We’re going back to the fishbowl,” he told Livvy.
She made a gasping sound of dismay. “Is that why you brought the rope? Those walls are too steep! And you’re hurt. We can’t!”
He hadn’t told her the worst of it. He steadied himself. “We dropped that radio down there in the caverns. If we can just get to it, we can call out. Turner’s skimming the coastline. He’s close by. We can find a place to hide until he can get to us with some backup.” They wouldn’t be able to get to him from the back of the island—the bluffs on that side were too sheer to climb down and too high to jump, not to mention the rocks waiting to tear apart their bodies at the bottom. They’d be jumping to their deaths. No, their best bet was to find somewhere safe and wait.
“You can’t climb down the fishbowl,” she said. “You can’t swim through the cavern—you’ll tear open your stitches. You won’t make it!”
He gritted his teeth. “We’ll figure it out.” If he couldn’t make it down the fishbowl himself, then he’d send Livvy down there to hide. Achilles was coming for them, and they didn’t have time to argue. “We can’t wait here,” he growled.
It was bad enough Livvy had gotten involved with him in the first place. He’d make sure she wasn’t going down for it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
This was the most dangerous idea imaginable!
They rushed through the forest in their bare feet, and she could only hope they got lost there so that they never found their way to that horrible fishbowl again.
They’d almost met their deaths there so many times, and for Venice to try it again when he was hurt? He was doing this for her, using some twisted reasoning to keep her safe; she knew it! Livvy kept running, skipping over roots and vaulting over fallen logs, racking her brain for another way out of this. Turner could be on the other side of this island on his boat. They could call down and work their way down the steep bluffs.
No, those cliffs were death defying, but… “How about we send out more flares,” she shouted over at Venice, “and then we just hide until the ‘right’ rescuers come for us.”
“They’ll find us! And our gun will only keep them back so long. We’re outnumbered.”
They’d need to do this stealthily.
What if she climbed down the fishbowl by herself and went down in the caverns?
Can I? I barely have the skills for that. There are no lines in the caverns to show me back to that spot where we were attacked—I’d get lost in there and then we’d both die!
Her gaze shifted to Venice—he still wasn’t completely healed from their shipwreck. His breathing was ragged; he took his time through the trees like he had to concentrate in order to see his way through.
